Multi-media data streaming represents an increasingly large portion of overall Internet traffic. One conventional method to enable multi-media data transfers over a proprietary high speed connection with very precise timing and high link stability involves an SDI interface. The SDI interface generally provides for data speeds up to 6 Gbps.
Recently, to achieve the same high precision and stable link quality, Audio Video Bridge (AVB) standards have been ratified to enable high-speed synchronized multi-media data transfers over high-speed local area networks, such as Ethernet and 10GBASE-T. With this new approach, conventional adapters (i.e. Ethernet and WiFi) are used to transfer high precision, broadcast quality multi-media, instead of proprietary SDI ones. As with any other multimedia distribution system, processing functions on the end point (for example a computer, laptop, tablet, automotive embedded device, video disc recorder, transcoder, or video end point) associated with the multimedia data are often carried out by large, high-power processors. This may be undesirable depending on the application. When the multimedia data is carried by such high-power processors, they need to remain on all the time to be able to carry the data, resulting in the inability of the end point to enter sleep mode, thus causing increased power consumption. Another concern associated with AVB standards running on these processors, is the need to support the complete AVB protocol stack in the software installed on the Operating System (OS), with all the potential compatibility problems and lack of essential AVB services associated with this.